Real Estate

According to the Community Associations Institute, there are nearly 310,000 association-governed communities (this includes homeowners’ associations, condominiums, cooperatives and other planned communities) in the United States, representing approximately 25-million individual housing units. The general role of a homeowners’ association is to maintain a community’s common areas—roads, parks, landscaping, recreation centers, swimming pools, clubhouses—and homeowners are required to pay association dues to fund the upkeep and contribute to the association’s reserve. On Oahu, homeowners’ association (HOA) fees can cost anywhere from $9 to $3,000 per month, depending on the services and amenities covered by the association.

I wrote about the Ka Makana at Hoakalei resort community a few weeks back. If you’ll recall, I mentioned that the community’s most affordable housing options, the Lehua Series town houses, were temporarily sold out. Well, lo and behold, the first town home resale has hit the market, and it will be open this Sunday.

The latest home-buying trend has legs, er, feet. As evidenced by two of my recent posts (see my stories on Kailua real estate bike tours and Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties’ Waikiki is Open event), eco-friendly real estate tours are popping up left and right. But it seems I missed one: Century 21 All Islands has long been hosting weekly real estate walking tours in Waikiki.

“I’ve had eight sales in Lanikai in the past year, all good properties,” says realtor Annie Kwock, as she gestures toward a new-ish, 4,000-sq.-ft. residence down the road that sold, without ever coming on the market, for $3,350,000. Another nearby listing, this one also a private sale, went for $1,665,000. So, a house in this neighborhood priced at $1,580,000 is something of a good deal? “It’s a phenomenal deal,” says Kwock of this Koohoo Pl. listing.

Manoa Valley Inn is one of the neighborhood’s most iconic residences, and certainly one of the island’s most charming historic homes. Built in 1911, the residence was formerly known as the John Guild House, named after the secretary of Alexander & Baldwin who acquired and renovated the property to its current form in 1919. In fact, the home, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has been owned by several prominent local figures throughout its history.

Forbes recently released its annual listing of America’s Most Expensive Zip Codes, and Hawaii’s top-ranking zip codes raised more than a few eyebrows. That’s because, according to the Forbes list, Hawaii’s most expensive zip code is 96703, Anahola, which came in at number 60 with a median home price of $1,921,875. The second-most expensive zip code in the islands? That would be 96714, Hanalei, which came in at No. 72 on the Forbes list with a median home price of $1,732,833. So how did these two Kauai zip codes out-rank Oahu’s consistently pricey 96821 (Aina Haina), which came in third?

For this weekend’s open-house pick, I’ve set my sights on Manoa—specifically, the former caretaker residence to the Straub Estate. According to listing agent Kai McDurmin, the original Straub home, built in 1919, sat on approximately an acre of land tucked into the back of the valley, and the caretakers’ quarters was built on part of the property in 1939. The entire estate was later subdivided into three parcels, one of which included the caretakers’ residence.

The Honolulu Board of Realtors released the September residential resales statistics for Oahu yesterday. Overall, changes in the market last month were minimal, showing mostly small, steady gains, which points to a pretty stable housing market.

I was intrigued by some of the data detailed in the 2010 Luxury Home Real Estate Market Report released by Prudential Locations early last month, and thought I'd pass along a few of the more intriguing highlights.

The Pacifica condominium building, formerly known as Moana Vista, got off to a bit of a rough start when the project went into foreclosure in early 2009. But things have certainly turned around since developer OliverMcMillan acquired the project in late 2009. The building is coming along—it will get its top at the end of this year, and completion is projected for fall 2011—and sales have been picking up. There are currently 360 condos under contract, leaving only about 130 on the market. Of those, approximately 30 are reserved housing, which I’ll get to in a minute, and 100 are market-rate residences.

It’s Friday, which means it’s once again time to talk open houses. This week I’m turning my attention to Kaneohe, more specifically, the Ahuimanu area. This townhouse is located in Club View Gardens III, a quiet townhouse community popular with new-home buyers, retirees and military families who appreciate the well-maintained grounds, recreation center and clubhouse, easy access to the H-3 (about a 15-minute drive) and Windward Mall (about five minutes away).